The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on October 27, 2003

(For the uninitiated, RAID-5 basically means: several hard drives grouped together to provide the appearance of a large drive, with a little bit of space withheld for backup purposes. So, even if 1 drive dies, you can replace it and your data is safe. If 2 die, you're kind of screwed.)

Okay, so last night (conveniently enough) I formulated my long term computer plan. In it, this included 2 high speed RAID-5 arrays – 1 for long term file storage, and 1 for high speed access for use when recording VHS to convert old tapes into DVD's – in order to take the whole 8 hour tape in 1 gulp, I need about 100GB. I then need about that much over again for temp space while editing and rendering.

So, it included 2 arrays of this spec:

3Ware 8506-4LP RAID controller

       - $367.99 @ pcmall.com

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST3160023AS 160GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive

       - $149.50 @ ZipZoomFly.com x 4 = $598

Okay, so it's basically $1000, right? For – 4 x 160 space, but it's RAID-5, so you lose 1 drive for backup info – so 3 x 160 = 480 GB of space.

1 raid array goes in a system I have already, all it needs is a beefier power supply. The other machine need to be built, probably out of spare parts, or cheap stuff on ebay.

Then I see that some company appears to be dumping large amounts of servers through a liquidator on ebay.

I see a 3U rackmount case, with a PIII 866MHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and TWELVE 80GB Hard Disks, on 2 3Ware RAID controllers and two gigabit cards.

Now, what does this tell us, boys and girls?
1.) 866MHz P3 is a fine file server
2.) 1GB of RAM makes for good caching for a file server
3.) I've yet to see anything that 3ware makes that isn't good
4.) It comes with a case and power supply to drive all this stuff.

Now, originally I thought the drives were in 2 6 channel controllers. However, 3ware never made 6 channel controllers. However, to get 12 drives, you can use a 4 channel and an 8 channel. This means that:

(8 – 1) * 80 = 560GB
(4 – 1) * 80 = 240GB

Hmmmmm…. looks like the top one would make a good file server, and the bottom would make a good workstation array, don't you think?

Now all I need is the aforementioned power supply for the workstation, and I'll be set.

Total cost – less than the cost of one of the arrays.

And I think I like this setup better – the fileserver is heavier on the storage than the workstation, which makes sense.

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